The Mind/Body Problem
Reading the book entitled "Mind, Language and Society" by John Searle, I had a chance to reflect again on the mind/body problem. Usually and traditionally in the field of philosophy what is called the mind/body problem is the ever discussed issue. That is to say, whether our consciousness is a kind of independent, substantial entity that can exist as it is without any external supports, or it is a just what is called "the ghost of the machines" – the peripheral illusion that easily disappears when the external support such as body (brain) does not exist. In short, the question was whether our human consciousness exists independently or it is just a reflection of our human bodily function.
For many years a lot of thinkers and philosophers are discussing this issue in one way or another. And another variation of the mind/body problem is the question to ask whether or not what we see in our consciousness is really a true reflection of the so-called "external reality." In a word, the question is: can we see the external world correctly? If not, how much our view has been distorted? If distorted, then how can we know the true external world that is called "ultimate reality"?
And again from such questions a lot of discussions have taken place. From Plato to Kant to Hegel to Marx to Kierkegaard to Heidegger to Derrida, etc., that is to say, from idealism to agnosticism to dialectic to materialism to existentialism to postmodernism, etc. Put it bluntly it is the ever-lasting discussions as to how much correctly we can see the so-called external reality in our consciousness (and the related questions can be: are there such a thing as external reality and are there such a thing as consciousness?).
Here of course I have no intention to review the whole epistemological, ontological questions of the history of philosophy and do not have enough materials either to do so right now. I am now just writing a simple stream of consciousness essay (oops, it seems my "consciousness" exists). But I just like to mention that to understand this mind/body problem in the bigger picture, there are some useful approach. That is, as I repeatedly say, that we consider this problem itself as a sort of category mistake. In other words, such dualistic question of whether body or mind (external or internal) should be fallacy.
For example, there is a metaphysical question -- "Does love exist?" Or "what is love?" Moreover, we can replace the word "love" with "God." There are what are called metaphysical questions and some materialistic thinkers used to remove such questions. In trying to be too materialistic like those thinkers, let's say, you can define love as our bodily reaction derived from some particular brain chemicals; or as our behavioral patters that keep our community sound and functional. It seems we are able to figure out what love is all about. And in the same way it seems we can do so on the definition of God, can’t we?
The fallacy here is that to explain the mechanism from the point of view of the different dimension does not necessarily show the very essence of the concept itself. Even if we can explain such metaphysical concept by using the materialist terms, regardless of such materialistic explain, love does exist in our rich internal world.
The very confusion was that we tried to use this dualistic approach in the same manner that we used to remove the existence of ghost and some kind of superstitious evils. It is true that our external, materialistic and scientific explanation have been able to remove a lot of superstitious practices; in doing so a lot of pre-modern cruelties have been removed from our premature naïve mentality. That was one of the great enlightenments in modernity. This is a triumph of the materialistic scientism of modernity. However, we have to be very careful with this point. That is to say, to remove the pre-modern, magico-mythological worldviews and their superstitious beliefs does NOT mean to deny everything about our rich internal worlds and the sound metaphysical terms.
The scientific materialism must be one of the very strong tools to overcome the mean side of our pre-modern mentality such as unnecessary fears, conflicts and cruel practices derived from the superstitious beliefs. To recognize the stupidity of the religious wars, we need such scientific, materialistic view. However, it is too much if we totally deny the value of religion as such because of this view. The bottom line is that we need both science and religion; however, we neither need scientism nor religious cruelty – the former is derived from the mean side of modernity and the latter is from that of pre-modernity. Thus, we can say that the mind/body problem may be part of such pre-modern /modern conflict.
Incidentally, post-modernity is the paradigm that is supposed to overcome this conflict and embrace both sides. But unfortunately it is not. The problem of post-modernity is the immature fusion of science and religion. New agers try to explain a certain religion by using the pseudo-scientific explanations. The movement of new sciences tries to irresponsibly support some supernatural phenomena with their pseudo-scientific explanations. Such immature "reunion" of science and religion has ironically been bringing such post-modern people back to the pre-modern magico-mythical worldview.
Thus, what we need is the true integration of science and religion from which we can correctly see the fallacy of the mind/body problem. And the key to lead us to such true integration is the evolutional, hierarchical view of the epistemological, ontological dimensions, which is, if we use very simple terms, categorized as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. For example, love can be explained from the dimension of matter as we saw the materialistic explanation above. In the same way, love can be explained by using the terms of the other dimensions. All explanation can be true and yet partial in its single dimension.
In the same manner our internal world such as human consciousness can be explained. In the next entry I would like to discuss the evolutional, hierarchical aspect of human consciousness.
For many years a lot of thinkers and philosophers are discussing this issue in one way or another. And another variation of the mind/body problem is the question to ask whether or not what we see in our consciousness is really a true reflection of the so-called "external reality." In a word, the question is: can we see the external world correctly? If not, how much our view has been distorted? If distorted, then how can we know the true external world that is called "ultimate reality"?
And again from such questions a lot of discussions have taken place. From Plato to Kant to Hegel to Marx to Kierkegaard to Heidegger to Derrida, etc., that is to say, from idealism to agnosticism to dialectic to materialism to existentialism to postmodernism, etc. Put it bluntly it is the ever-lasting discussions as to how much correctly we can see the so-called external reality in our consciousness (and the related questions can be: are there such a thing as external reality and are there such a thing as consciousness?).
Here of course I have no intention to review the whole epistemological, ontological questions of the history of philosophy and do not have enough materials either to do so right now. I am now just writing a simple stream of consciousness essay (oops, it seems my "consciousness" exists). But I just like to mention that to understand this mind/body problem in the bigger picture, there are some useful approach. That is, as I repeatedly say, that we consider this problem itself as a sort of category mistake. In other words, such dualistic question of whether body or mind (external or internal) should be fallacy.
For example, there is a metaphysical question -- "Does love exist?" Or "what is love?" Moreover, we can replace the word "love" with "God." There are what are called metaphysical questions and some materialistic thinkers used to remove such questions. In trying to be too materialistic like those thinkers, let's say, you can define love as our bodily reaction derived from some particular brain chemicals; or as our behavioral patters that keep our community sound and functional. It seems we are able to figure out what love is all about. And in the same way it seems we can do so on the definition of God, can’t we?
The fallacy here is that to explain the mechanism from the point of view of the different dimension does not necessarily show the very essence of the concept itself. Even if we can explain such metaphysical concept by using the materialist terms, regardless of such materialistic explain, love does exist in our rich internal world.
The very confusion was that we tried to use this dualistic approach in the same manner that we used to remove the existence of ghost and some kind of superstitious evils. It is true that our external, materialistic and scientific explanation have been able to remove a lot of superstitious practices; in doing so a lot of pre-modern cruelties have been removed from our premature naïve mentality. That was one of the great enlightenments in modernity. This is a triumph of the materialistic scientism of modernity. However, we have to be very careful with this point. That is to say, to remove the pre-modern, magico-mythological worldviews and their superstitious beliefs does NOT mean to deny everything about our rich internal worlds and the sound metaphysical terms.
The scientific materialism must be one of the very strong tools to overcome the mean side of our pre-modern mentality such as unnecessary fears, conflicts and cruel practices derived from the superstitious beliefs. To recognize the stupidity of the religious wars, we need such scientific, materialistic view. However, it is too much if we totally deny the value of religion as such because of this view. The bottom line is that we need both science and religion; however, we neither need scientism nor religious cruelty – the former is derived from the mean side of modernity and the latter is from that of pre-modernity. Thus, we can say that the mind/body problem may be part of such pre-modern /modern conflict.
Incidentally, post-modernity is the paradigm that is supposed to overcome this conflict and embrace both sides. But unfortunately it is not. The problem of post-modernity is the immature fusion of science and religion. New agers try to explain a certain religion by using the pseudo-scientific explanations. The movement of new sciences tries to irresponsibly support some supernatural phenomena with their pseudo-scientific explanations. Such immature "reunion" of science and religion has ironically been bringing such post-modern people back to the pre-modern magico-mythical worldview.
Thus, what we need is the true integration of science and religion from which we can correctly see the fallacy of the mind/body problem. And the key to lead us to such true integration is the evolutional, hierarchical view of the epistemological, ontological dimensions, which is, if we use very simple terms, categorized as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. For example, love can be explained from the dimension of matter as we saw the materialistic explanation above. In the same way, love can be explained by using the terms of the other dimensions. All explanation can be true and yet partial in its single dimension.
In the same manner our internal world such as human consciousness can be explained. In the next entry I would like to discuss the evolutional, hierarchical aspect of human consciousness.
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